


That's All I've Ever Been

by bookhousegirl



Category: National Football League RPF
Genre: Character Study, Family, Gen, Possible bromance, Secret Genius?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-24 23:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3788728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhousegirl/pseuds/bookhousegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If Tom Brady believes I can do it, then I believe."</p><p>For a credo, that’s about as simple as it gets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's All I've Ever Been

**Author's Note:**

> This isn’t exactly a sequel to One Week, A Thousand Miles (and this fic does not reference the events of that), but more of a companion piece. Largely inspired by Gronk’s December 2014 interview with ESPN The Magazine in which we got so many absolute gems about his relationship with TB12 and Christmas gifts and snuggling and all that, as well as the Sports Illustrated article from back in 2012, and few real life things that happened along the way. Although this is not real, obviously (and suspension of disbelief for a bunch of stuff that happens during the regular season). Fiction, fiction, fiction.
> 
> And of course this was mostly conceptualized before, and therefore ignores, Gronk’s epic appearance on Jimmy Kimmel and his post-Super Bowl response about “A Mockingbird to Remember.” But maybe you can see where he's going with that, in this little universe.
> 
> I fear that this is out of character for Gronk, but it was kind of a challenge to be in his head and way harder to capture him as the main character and Tom as the secondary. And I got really caught up in a metaphor here, so I apologize for that and all the sad life thoughts. I really wanted to complete it, and I liked too many things to just scrap it entirely. Oh well.
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope someone enjoys this, and happy Patriots Day. Boston strong.

\---

He still gets questions about the SI article. The party limo, which Rob can’t even front, is awesome. Father Baker’s. Gronk Park. He is never asked, however, about his response to a question that Ballard put to him, but then didn’t include in the article, and only tweeted it later. His favorite book? To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. And he had paused, for a good long while, recounts Ballard, before he answered. He knows most people intuit that’s because he had never read a book before.

It’s stupid to be bothered by it, by the assumption and the acceptance and the absence of questions, which means that the public is just content with believing that yeah, Gronk’s dumb as shit, and it took him that fucking long to even come up with the most famous book in the universe. Rob’s actually read the book, so fuck everyone.

No one would ever accuse him of not being himself, of hiding who he is. He’s not that complicated. Honestly, he’s not. But he had hesitated over the book thing. Some things are okay to keep just for himself.

\---

Is anyone even coming to this party? Rob huffs a little bit, hands on hips, as he checks his phone for the time. Dan laughs at him and snatches a beer from the large metal tub full of drinks and ice that they picked up on a whim while wandering around a flea market in Cambridge the morning before. Dan had rolled his eyes and then groaned audibly at the hand-written tag that read $300 hanging off one of the thin handles. But Rob loves it. It’s rough and worn in the best way, former shiny-bright silver fading into comfortable, less-distinctive gray.

“Just think about it. Moms gave their babies baths in this. Peoples washed their dishes here and did laundry and had it in their lives every day.” He smiles warmly as Dan helps him drag it over to the truck.

“Yeah, and now it’s going to hold your beer for a rando party you’re having for Monday Night Football?” Dan wrinkles his nose as they shove it in the back and close the hatch.

But it’s awesome. The stamp on the bottom reads 1895 and Boston, Massachusetts. Rob likes that it’s useful and practical and not delicate or ornate, which makes it beautiful in a homey sort of way. And okay, the beer is mostly Sam Adams anyway, and he knows the guys would drink PBR if it’s what he was providing, but it means a lot to him that this is a grown up party, that things are tidy and properly presented, and well, impressive.

He shuffles around the kitchen, arranging the chips and various dips he braved Whole Foods to buy and the sliders he had made and had Dan grill out on the balcony. He stirs the famous buffalo chicken dip that he asked their mom for the recipe for.

“Jesus, calm the fuck down,” Dan chastises, shoving a beer into his hands. “Just...function. Okay?”

Dan knows that he never does stuff like this, that he’s almost always completely content to live an uncomplicated life during the season. It’s not about letting people in or sharing his life or something deep like that. He’s almost convinced himself that this is all there is. But still. This isn’t a usual part of the Gronk experience.

Jules shows up soon, bumping fists with Rob and throwing his arms around Dan in a ferocious hug. Brandon, Chung, LaGarrette, even Steve Gostkowski. Vince gets there and throw his arm around Rob. “So awesome of you to invite us all over,” he says, reaching up to affectionately muss Rob’s hair a little bit. “Tom sends his regrets. But I’m gonna tell him how great all this was.” He holds out his phone for a selfie.

“It’s cool. Tell him we miss him,” Rob replies, not looking up from stirring the buffalo dip.

“Yep.” Vince taps at his phone, presumably sending the photo and a text to Tom and then goes to join his teammates. “Big brother Gronk!” he cries out when he sees Dan, sweeping him into a hug too.

Rob’s phone buzzes and he pulls it out of his jeans. Vince had sent the photo in a message thread to both him and Tom. _Sorry i can’t be there, looks fun_ is the response from Tom. _Lucky i’m savin you some dip_ , he texts back, just to Tom. Tom writes back a few minutes later, _You’re a good man Gronk_. Rob pockets the phone and scoops some of the dip into a tupperware.

Even with his back turned, he knows Dan’s giving him a look, but he refuses to acknowledge it. He shoves the tupperware to the back of the fridge and strategically moves a few yogurts and a sorry looking jar of dill pickles in front of it.

\---

The untouched assumptions about To Kill a Mockingbird are bad enough. Sometimes he just wants to protect something of himself, to keep a little bit of his honesty, his joy, for himself, for special people that he cares about. It’s not that stardom isn’t what he expects, it absolutely is. And he’s been good, very good, about not losing himself in the whole schtick, even when everyone thinks everything about him is a schtick.

His friends are awesome, he’s been hanging with them since middle school, he trusts them, they know him 100%. Gordy, Dan, Chris, and Glenn really are in a four-way tie for his best friend and that is never changing. If other people don’t have that much awesomeness, then he feels sorry for them, but can’t worry about them. Rob’s lucky in that way. He knows it.

Even for someone who is mostly happy, mean shit can still hurt. He didn’t talk to that asshole Welker for two weeks after he found out what he said about when Dan came to the team, and secondarily, about him. Because okay, like Wes Welker is some kind of genius who reads fucking James Joyce or some shit? No way.

He hasn’t purposefully been thinking about this, about all the stuff that bothers him and makes him uncomfortable and awkward and unhappy. This season seems to be rolling towards its destiny now and he’s part of it again, in the thick of it again, and for that he should be thankful. Wondering about whether there’s something more feels selfish.

“You can’t change people or what they think,” Chris tells him when he complains a little one day on the phone. “Why the hell are you even worried about this?”

Rob frowns. He doesn’t want to change people or what they think, though. That’s not it at all. But if what he’s putting out there tends to lead people to think a certain way, maybe that’s a problem.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” he demands, putting Chris on the spot.

After a pause of, quite frankly, a lot of time, more than Rob is strictly comfortable with, Chris relents kindly. “Of course I think you’re an idiot. You’re my kid brother. You’re asking the wrong guy.”

“No. You know me, man. I’m asking you.”

Chris sighs. “Rob,” he says, sounding long-suffering. “Let it go. No one cares if you’re more than what you are.”

\---

When Rob was in fourth grade, his class studied mythology, and he checked out D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths from the library. He became mesmerized with the most famous stories, of how Pandora tortured humans, how Apollo and Artemis were proud and headstrong, how Poseidon controlled the sea according to his mood, and how Deucalion saved mother earth from destruction.

They could only check out two books per week, but Rob kept D’Aulaire’s til the pages were dog-eared and the paper was soft on his fingertips, til the pictures were something he could see when he closed his eyes in the darkness of the bedroom he shared with Chris. He tried to convince the librarian that he lost the book and only fessed up when overcome with guilt that his parents would have to replace it.

When the other kids in his class checked it out after him, he gave them dark, furious looks and conjured terrible thoughts about how they didn’t deserve to be reading such a magical book. Eventually his mom bought it for him, but it didn’t feel the same as the book from the library, with its distinctive smell of aging paper and worn feel that could only come from being pressed together next to other books day after day on a dusty, neglected shelf. He longed for the book he fell in love with, with its broken spine and binding exposed in some places, with its faint partial fingerprints where kids before him had clutched the pages as they immersed themselves in a world steeped halfway in reality and halfway in dream.

\---

Rob gets nervous. Everyone gets nervous. And he gets uncomfortable. It’s not as if being Rob Gronkowski means being able to tamp down aspects of his personality that are there, just not regularly on display for the public, and brush off his insecurities like it’s no big deal. He doesn’t linger, maybe, like other people, because he is who he is, and being okay with that, being _mostly okay with that_ , is also part of who he is. There’s a balance and being good at most things is sometimes offset by being really bad at other things. It shouldn’t bother him that the good things are football and having a killer body that he works insanely hard on, and that the bad things are not sounding like he knows what he’s talking about when on television and not having a varied and collegiate level vocabulary.

Gordy, because he’s a gigantic asshole, heckles him really hard after Pats PR makes him meet with the astronaut. “You’re wearing fucking mesh basketball shorts, dude!” he snorts into the other end of the phone. “You met a NASA astronaut in person and all you could say was that you saw Interstellar! Oh my god!”

“You are such a dick, I can’t stand you,” Rob swears, holding the phone away from his face before throwing it on the coffee table.

He doesn’t need to watch the short video clip that is now on the website and on the app, because he was there, he knows he was a fucking wreck. His agent only told him two hours before it was supposed to happen and he knows he was doing all his usual ticks that signal how out of place he feels - laughing a lot at the wrong moment, swinging his hands back and forth, and snapping his fingers. It sucks because, honestly, meeting a lady astronaut, who flies a space shuttle, is a pretty amazing thing. Fuck Gordy, he’s never met an astronaut.

“That’s awesome that you got to meet the astronaut,” Tom tells him later that day, as they’re passing in the hallway by the weight room.

Rob looks up in surprise and tries to smile a genuine smile. “Uh yeah, I guess. I felt kind of wrong-footed or something, though. I hope it didn’t come off too bad. I mean, she’s an astronaut and shit. That’s pretty insane.”

“Yeah, man. Totally crazy.” Tom nods his head with a grin and smacks the back of his hand against Rob’s shoulder. “She mans a space shuttle. And she’s a Gronk fan. What’s that about?” Tom asks jokingly, then turns to go in the weight room.

He feels better and pushes himself to do an extra few sets. He hadn’t thought about that. Trust in Tom Brady to break down even complicated life stuff into the parts he can understand. An astronaut is a fucking Gronk fan. Hell yeah.

\---

Personality is really just a series of moments from the past, that someone deemed significant, and go on to define the present and the future. When Gordy was twelve and Rob was just six, Rob full-on tackled Gordy for holding out the football to taunt him as he ran to their backyard end zone to score. Everyone laughed. “Nasty,” Gordy had said, shaking his head, as if he wasn’t the one being a jerk to a first grader. “Competitive,” their dad had laughed, putting his arm around Rob protectively and drawing him close.

The first time he snorted milk out of his nose at the lunch table, five other boys cracked up. “He’s hilarious,” one of them said. “So funny.”

In third grade he somehow made it to the final round of his class spelling bee. He misspelled ‘piece’ because the _i before e_ rule was tricky, it really was, and he was so nervous, with all the other kids staring expectantly, like they knew he would ultimately mess it up. “Rob,” his teacher had said, shaking her head. “I know you know that one.” Maybe academics wasn’t his thing, his dad said, after the parent-teacher conference that spring.

“Duh,” he sassed back to his mom, with an accompanying eye roll, when he was ten, trying out a word that his friends always used at school with each other. He got grounded. “Such a smartass,” snickered Dan to Gordy when they got dessert but Rob got dismissed from the table to go do homework in his room with a disappointed look from their mom.

There’s always going to be a side that nobody else sees. That’s okay. The labels stick for a reason - _competitive, tough, jokester, wiseass_. These aren’t necessarily bad things. The expectations seem to be ones he can fulfill.

He decides he’s good with it, he’s all right. It doesn’t matter now that he decided long ago, always to pick Glenn for his team first and to try extra hard to throw passes that the only brother younger than him could catch. _Thoughtful_ , his mom might have said. _Generous_. Or that his teacher didn’t actually remember that he got 100% on every spelling test for the rest of the year. _Focused_ , _driven_ , she might have written on his reports. Or that after he said “duh” to his mom, he cried alone in his room instead of doing homework. Not because he was missing fudge brownies, but because he had showed disrespect.

No one chooses for his personality any one thing at the expense of another. But it feels like it.

\---

His hands twitch a little bit as he pours some of the pinot grigio that he’s been chilling for the last forty-eight hours into two glasses and opens the oven again, to check on the salmon. He screws up his face a little bit - wine’s never been his thing, but the guy at the shop down the street said this was excellent - and starts to worry that the fish will be overdone. He wishes Dan were there to tell him to chill the fuck out. Except. Well, then Dan would be there. So, awkward.

“I brought beer!” Tom announces, lifting up a six pack of some kind of imported fancy Belgian stuff. “I don’t think it’s cold enough though.” He steps into the doorway and looks around. “Nice place.”

Rob grabs the beer and puts it in the fridge. “Yeah, thanks, man. You’ve never been here before.” He twists one hand in the hem of his shirt to stop fidgeting.

“I’m sorry I missed the party. But, if I had known it was this close to Gillette, you might’ve seen me every day after practice.” Tom turns from the wide, cool glass of the expansive windows and accepts the glass of wine that Rob hands him. “You’d have to kick me out.”

It’s just a joke, of course it is, but suddenly everything feels too hot. He covers it by cracking an on-point Gronk smile. “Well, you’re welcome whenever, man. Any time.”

It gets a little better from there. Tom sits at the rarely used dining room table, sipping his wine, and talking about stuff he and Gisele have been doing to their place, while Rob plates the fish on the bed of rice that he’s nestled on the bottom. He drizzles some of the dill sauce he made with a spoon and hands a plate to Tom.

Tom’s eyes are wide as he takes it. “Um, wow. I kind of thought there was going to be pizza. Or burgers maybe. That’s why I brought the beer.”

“Oh,” Rob hastily turns and makes his own plate. “Sorry I guess I should have said?”

“No, I’m just surprised, that’s all. Didn’t know you cooked this kind of gourmet stuff, Gronk.” Tom’s easy smile smoothes everything over.

Sitting at the table is awkward, so they move to the couch and Rob puts on a Bruins game. “I played as a kid,” he says, gesturing to TD Garden on the screen.

“I bet you were awesome,” Tom compliments. “You were probably the best enforcer in all of the fourth grade.”

He spins the wine glass absently in a circle. “Yeah, I guess. I’m good at sports.” Which is the understatement of the year. Tom must agree because he snorts. “You’re good at most things,” he says back, a little more quietly.

There’s a pause and Rob can’t talk because there’s something sharp burning in the back of his throat. It’s not like Tom knows, and he’s never shared his insecurity about his image, himself, his actual life with anyone else except Chris. But it feels strangely painful to hear someone who has it all, whose entire existence is so effortless, just echo back what Rob only hopes he’s hearing.

Suddenly it’s a great diversion to eat, and watch the game, and get a little tipsy on the wine, and not give in to his worries or the strange thought that’s now swirling around in his brain, that he invited Tom Brady over to his place and made him dinner.

The night wears on a little bit, Rob feeling uncomfortable and unsure of himself. He digs his fingers into his jeans a little bit to stop twitching. It’s almost a relief when Tom says he has to go and Rob wonders for an instant whether Tom feels like this is weird or not. But Tom’s Tom. He never acts like anything is more or less than he already thought it would be.

“Thanks for the awesome dinner, man. I’m glad I got to see your place and I’m sorry about missing the party. So, you know, keep the beer.” Tom punches him lightly in the shoulder.

“Thanks for coming over,” Rob responds, leaning a little against the open doorway where they’re standing. Currently there’s a war inside of him, a fight between wanting to kick Tom out immediately and wanting to keep Tom here forever. He’s not sure which side makes him say, “Thanks for being nice to me.”

Tom shrugs and smiles again, like all this is the most simple and logical thing in the world. “You’re easy to be nice to. But don’t get used to it.”

\---

The most visceral dark spots in his world are about being hurt, or losing. He hates being hurt and hates the feeling of helplessness. Restlessness is ingrained in him by nature and that does not work well with insecurity either. Not knowing when he’ll play again, if he’ll play again, works its negative magic on his self-esteem.

And then there’s failure, which is playing poorly. Being a disappointment. That’s how he feels after Green Bay, when what he has to give isn’t enough, when the one thing he has to offer, his athleticism, his speed, his control, his physicality, isn’t enough.

“It wasn’t good enough tonight, guys,” Tom snaps in the locker room. He’s speaking to everyone, taking it out on all them, and they deserve that, but Rob feels like he’s getting a personal dressing-down. And yeah, that’s probably fair.

Rob goes about his routine, tosses his equipment in the bins, runs through his shower, change, dress. For the first time in a long time, he wants to avoid Tom, wants not to be the focus of his sharp attention.

“Hey!” Tom finally catches him right before they board the bus. He pulls on Rob’s arm and they step away from the line of guys loading up their equipment and bags.

Rob sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. “Look, I know I could’ve done better.”

“We all could have done better.” Tom looks at the slumped shoulders of Steve, and then turns back to Rob. “You had a really good night. But it doesn’t mean that much when we both know what you can do.”

“I know. I’m sorry I let the team down, let you down,” Rob says, on automatic.

Tom shakes his arm. “You only let me down when you don’t play to your absolute best. I know what you’re capable of, Gronk.” He pauses and says so honestly, so persuasively, “There’s more there. I know there is. So show me.”

\---

As proud as he is over the interview, he kind of forgets that he did it. Right now, there’s enough other shit hanging over his head, like actually playing football, and putting this division race to bed. So he also definitely forgets that his publicist told him the video would be going online before the print interview hits the stands.

“Dude.” It’s Chris who straightens up from on the couch, when Rob makes it back to the condo, struggling with bags of groceries.

He doesn’t like the look on his brother’s face, but at the moment, honestly, he’s more worried about getting the brisket he bought into the fridge. “Yo, a little help?” Rob asks pointedly. He shoves Chris in the direction of the bags and starts to unpack them. “And what are you all ‘Dude...’ about?”

Chris narrows his eyes. “Do you really have no idea what I’m talking about right now?"

Getting into the kind of verbal back and forth with Chris is stupid, he hates every second of it. “Look at my face, dickwipe. Does it look like I have an idea what you’re talking about?” He opens his eyes wide and makes his best goofy stupid Gronk face.

It’s a little disconcerting, the way Chris’ hardened expression turns kinder, softer. Chris looks sad and Rob can count on one hand the number of times he and Chris have been in the same room and Chris has looked sad.

“What?” he asks, feeling a little lost and not knowing what to do about it. When Chris holds up his ipad to cue up the short video Rob groans. “Come on, man. Give me a fucking break. I know I did okay with this one. I totally don’t look like a moron.”

“Oh Rob. You are so dumb,” he says, shaking his head. “You don’t even know.”

\---

Maybe it was a little bit of a dick move, to have skipped the post-practice session where Tom brings everyone his pair of Uggs for the year. Tom loves it for some unknown reason, even though there is no doubt that there will be Uggs. Every goddamn year. Once again, there’s a little bit of himself he’s trying to protect when he texts Tom later to say he’ll pick up his gift after all the other players have gone. What he said on the video is absolutely true, the only thing Tom wants is for Rob to catch his passes.

“I wonder what this could be?” he jokes, readily enough, when Tom hands him the large white box stamped Australia on it.

“It’s a tradition!” Tom protests, though he’s laughing. His face is flushed and bright, and he looks good in his generosity.

Rob pulls out the Uggs and smiles. “Thanks, man. Just my size.”

“Sure, no problem. Merry Christmas, Gronk.” Tom gives him a quick bro-hug. Now there’s awkwardness.

“Oh, you know what you should do? Maybe one year, fake everybody out and give them in boxes that say Crocs or something? That could be funny.” Rob’s attempt at a joke to cut the stiltedness of their time together falls a little flat, poorly timed and not actually that funny, as many things with Rob are.

But as always, Tom laughs genuinely, like it’s the funniest thing he ever heard. “I could try it. I’ll keep that in mind. Although you’ll already know. So no telling.”

“I got you something too,” Rob says in a rush. The book is neatly wrapped in blue paper with the Patriots logo in silver on it. His mom had gotten it last Christmas and Rob had never wrapped a single thing in it until now.

Tom seems a little transfixed by the wrapping paper and he touches one of the logos. “Gronk, man, you didn’t have to get me anything. And look at this wrapping paper, it’s awesome.”

“I hope you like it.” He flashes a patented Gronk smile and punches Tom lightly on the arm. “Merry Christmas, TB.”

Later, he has to stop himself from picking up the phone to call, to explain it all, when he realizes that Tom never actually opened the present in front of him. Whatever. If he's learned anything, it's that he might have to cop to a bad performance on the field, or when he doesn't meet expectations. But the fundamental things about himself he's never had to explain. It's just there, instinctively somehow, with Tom Brady.

\---

Everything has been going so quickly, in a blur, as they rush towards the postseason. The bye week gives them a little more time and Rob finally gets a breather after the fourth straight day of nonstop practice. Tom’s rushing out of the locker room, already changed and probably headed home. There are kids to pick up from school or sports practice, there’s someone to watch television with, and discuss the day, someone to take care of and to share with.

“Good work today, Gronk. Keep at it,” he says with a wink.

Rob nods. The rest of his day will probably be spent on the phone with Chris, and then another workout at home, bed early. He’s trying not to think about it, about when his days will be filled with something more.

Just as Tom is about to go his own way, he turns and grins. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, that book is awesome, man.”

It’s not what Rob expects to hear. “Yeah?” he asks, excitement in his voice. “You liked it?”

Tom nods. “Yeah, well I mean, the kids do, so obviously, yes. John and Ben, they can’t stop looking at it. I may have to get another one, so they’ll stop fighting over it.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, cool, I’m glad.” He’s failing at keeping his face neutral, to keep from not registering disappointment, but Tom seems oblivious in his thankfulness, in his joy over his kids, in his desire to go and be with them.

At this point it would be stupid to correct him, to say it wasn’t necessarily a gift for the boys. That would be even stupider, if there is such a possibility, than having given a kids book as a gift in the first place. Of course Tom thought it was for the boys, for John and Ben. That would make sense. The other reason, it doesn’t make sense. It’s a gross miscalculation to have thought that it would.

Over the phone to Chris he says, “I’m about to tell you something. Please don’t laugh at me.”

Almost involuntarily it seems, Chris laughs. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Chris answers back, after Rob pouts. “I won’t laugh. Go ahead.”

True to form, Chris doesn’t laugh. “I’m sorry,” he says, this time startlingly genuine.

Rob is silent on the other end, trying to calm down, listening to the breathing of his brother, so familiar to him from years of sharing a room, trying to fall asleep after telling stories and secrets at night, from looking back at each other in a huddle as they mapped out a play.

“The people who know you love you,” Chris tells him fiercely, and Rob loves him back so much. “No matter what you do on the football field. No matter what some dumb asshole on twitter says about you. It’s okay to be who you are.”

Rob shakes his head. Chris isn’t getting it. “But it’s okay to want to be something more, right? To want someone to see that I’m more?”

Chris’ breath is shaky. “Rob,” he says. “Absolutely.” But to Rob he sounds sad, tired. Anything but absolute.

\---

His favorite story isn’t about Zeus, or, as some would probably guess if he had even revealed his true favorite book, Dionysus.

When Rob was small, he never knew, or examined too closely, why he was so invested in the story of the god of the underworld, who lived in a dark place of loneliness and lost souls, and tried to force love onto someone who grew and gave and signified hope. The story is really just complicated and messy, with no clear answers about the different kinds of love in the world. He hated that Persephone got taken away from her mom, and that her mom missed her so much. Hades was probably a super bad dude too. How else do you get to be king of the underworld.

He doesn’t think about it a lot. But now, something strikes him with longing and feels darkly familiar when he thinks about an empty king, blindsided by the brightest thing he ever saw, and the futile urge to force someone to occupy a place in his lonely world.

Up, up, up Persephone escapes from the dark once a year. It must be freeing to experience that kind of flight, to eradicate one set of perceptions and expectations for another. Here's the great truth from the story: It's without a doubt easier to be just one thing. Nobody ever wants to hear that you're complicated or sophisticated or deep. Nobody wants to be surprised, even when asking questions like, "Tell us something we don't know about you." Everyone wants things to be exactly how he already thought it was.

In his makeshift office, that his mom set up for him, which consists of a desk strewn with bills and magazines, and a few untidy bookshelves, he tucks D'Aulaire's back into place, between a photo album and a Fodors guide for the national parks.

Keep it simple, their dad has always told them. Do your job, the Patriots preach.

Rob goes about it then.


End file.
